If we then are to have fellowship with Jesus Christ in His present work, we must spend much time in prayer; we must give ourselves to earnest, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer. I know of nothing that has so impressed me with a sense of the importance of praying at all seasons, being much and constantly in prayer, as the thought that that is the principal occupation at present of my risen Lord.
I want to have fellowship with Him, and to that end I have asked the Father that whatever else He may make me, to make me at all events an intercessor, to make me a man who knows how to pray, and who spends much time in prayer.
This ministry of intercession is a glorious and a mighty ministry, and we can all have part in it. The man or the woman who is shut away from the public meeting by sickness can have part in it; the busy mother; the woman while doing her housework can have part she can mingle prayers for the saints, and for laborers in the vineyard, for the unsaved, and for foreign missionaries; the hard-driven man of business can have part in it, praying as he hurries from duty to duty.
But of course we must, if we would maintain this spirit of constant prayer, take time – and take plenty of it – when we shall shut ourselves up in the secret place alone with God for nothing but prayer.
Another reason for constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer, is that prayer is the means that God has appointed for our receiving mercy, and obtaining grace to help in time of need.